Parents devote much of their time to the entertainment and amusement of their children; but the economical side of play is never forgotten. If during a game, a practical wrinkle can be taught, which will prove useful when the playful moments are left behind and the more serious stage of life is entered, the opportunity is never missed.
Much time is spent in the evenings teaching the younger generation songs and dances, which allude to ancestral traits, to the tricks of the chase, and to the damage the evil spirits can do. The notes and calls of the different wild animals and birds, with which the tribe has daily to do, are cleverly imitated and explained, disregardless of the numerous repetitions, which are begged, to satisfy the childish curiosity. For instance, the plover is by the Western Arunndta called “kurreke tata,” which is softly and musically rendered in imitation of the bird’s familiar cry. The plover is described as a rain-maker, which is able to bring the water from a cloud whenever it desires. Even the European settler often refers to this bird as a “rainpiper”; the connection between the species and rain no doubt having arisen from the fact that plover usually follow up showers and remain in the vicinity of any pools which collect upon the ground. During any rain-making ceremonies the plover is frequently mimicked. Another of their favourite items is the imitation of a whining and howling dingo, which they accomplish with wonderful accuracy.
The dances, too, are largely imitative. One of the most popular of the Arunndta repertoire is the frog-dance. The child adopts a sitting attitude and passes its arms from the outside, behind the knees, and forwards to the ground. In this position, it moves about on “all fours,” with a peculiar hopping motion, adding greatly to the hilarity of the meeting.
Great pleasure is evinced by the beaming young faces when an adult prepares to draw pictures in the sand. A small circular patch of ground is cleared by the entertainer, and the children seat themselves around it. Having smoothed the surface with the palm of his hand, he proceeds to “draw” by scratching the design into the sand with a small pointed stick. Although the pictures are crude, and often nothing short of puzzles to the European, the artist talks all the while to the children in such a convincing way that, even assuming their eye incapable of comprehension, their interest is excited or persuaded to such an extent as to almost render the few lines in the sand a living reality. “Here is the man,” explains the artist, as he draws a vertical line, “walking about” (a number of small holes are tapped into the sand), “he sees a lizard” (a longer line on a slope crossed by two shorter bars at right angles), “away it runs” (pairs of taps slantingly opposite to each other), “the man after it” (single taps between the former pairs), “he throws a boomerang” (the familiar shape of the weapon is outlined), “the lizard goes down a hole” (a hole is scratched into the ground), “the Kurdaitcha take it, it is gone!” (he slaps the spot with the flat of his hand). “Yerrai! What is that? A snake!” (emerging from the hole he draws a curved line), “the man has lost his boomerang but he hits the snake with his waddy” (the curved line is smacked several times with the small drawing stick the artist holds in his hand). “I, i, i! he has finished (i.e. killed) it.” And so the narration might go on for a considerable time.
Commendable pains are taken by the adults in imitating the tracks of all the animals of chase, and the children are invited to compete in reproducing them. For instance, an “emu track” is obtained by pressing the inner surfaces of the index finger and thumb, held at an angle of about forty-five degrees, into a smooth patch of sand; then, without lifting the index finger, the thumb is moved to the opposite side and there pressed into the sand, at about the same angle as before. Often the impression of the “pad” of the bird’s foot is indicated by dabbing the round point of the thumb into the sand immediately behind the intersection of the three “toes.”
A kangaroo track is simple, and is made by imprinting a finger or big toe twice in the sand, an inch or two apart, so that the resulting marks are two parallel grooves supposed to represent the impressions of the long central toes of the marsupial. A shorter mark is made at the centre of either of these, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, to indicate the lateral toes, when the track is complete. At times a small scratch or hole is made at the end of each of the “toes,” to suggest the claw-marks.
A dog track is made with the fingers alone. The tip of the thumb makes an imprint, which is to represent the pad, whilst the finger-tips supply those of the four toes, ranged in a semi-circle about the former. The claw-marks are added in the same way as described of the kangaroo track.
A human track is imitated by imprinting the outer edge of a half-closed hand, the left hand being used for the left foot and the right for the right. This impression will give the ball, the outer surface, and the heel of the required track; the toe-marks are dabbed in with the finger-tips.
Where the camel is known, its track is reproduced. A piccaninny is momentarily sat upon a smooth patch of sand and lifted away again; the imprint of its stern supplies the outline for the required track. The lower half of ridge left in the sand by the cleft between the child’s buttocks is obliterated, when the “track” is ready for the never-failing applause. Occasionally the upper angles, representing the camel’s toes, are improved by making them more acute and deepening them to show where the claws are supposed to have cut into the ground.
The study of animal-spoors in all their specific and various intricacies, and especially the art of individualizing the human foot-print, rank among the most important and earliest occupations of the aboriginal child’s mind. Parents are required by law to see that the children receive constant instruction and exercise in this department. It is a common thing for a mother to purposely slip away from her child and not to respond to the imploring wail, which follows when her absence is discovered. The only sympathy some relatives or friends might proffer is to direct the child’s notice to its mother’s tracks and at the same time urging it to follow them up.